Data shows coronavirus deaths across the world begin to slow

Most affected countries have seen their peak or are already in decline

(Getty/iStock)

The global death toll of coronavirus has continued to grow, with over 200,000 people known to have been killed by the disease. However, data shows that these numbers are at their peak or starting to flatten in countries affected by the outbreak around the world.

In early March, the World Health Organisation declared that Europe had become the epicentre of the pandemic, with more cases confirmed across the continent than had been reported in China during the height of its outbreak. At that point, Europe had also reported more cases and deaths than the rest of the world (excluding China) combined.

Weeks of strict lockdown in countries such as Italy and Spain, the top two hardest-hit countries in the continent, are beginning to pay off as their death rates begin to decrease, mirroring that of China and South Korea, which were some of the earliest countries to implement measures to curb the spread of the disease.

The latest figures also see the UK as the country with the third highest death rate worldwide, with only Italy and the US reporting more fatalities.

The UK’s coronavirus death toll has risen above 26,000 after fatalities outside hospitals were included by the government for the first time. It also now accounts for over 10 per cent of the worldwide total.

While the number of deaths is still increasing, most countries that have implemented social distancing measures are now seeing a decline in the daily growth rate of deaths, similar to in China after Wuhan was locked down.

Since the beginning of April, the focus of the death toll has switched from Asia to Europe, and now to the US. Throughout March, Europe was bearing the brunt of the human cost of the outbreak — and still accounts for than half of global deaths — before the virus gained a foothold in the US, which now has the highest number of confirmed cases globally.

Within three months of the first reported cases in the US, more people in the country have died from Covid-19-related illness than the 58,220 Americans who died over the two decades of war in Vietnam.

Several daily US death tolls from coronavirus have eclipsed 2,000 lives.

These charts using rolling averages to make clear that they show vague trends, not hard facts. Please approach all coronavirus data with caution.